Only if enough ordinary Americans speak up and demand better from both their employers and their government is the system going to get fixed. But first of all, we have to understand how serious the problem is.

One of the difficulties in getting to the bottom of the poor prospects for retirement is that the policy and intellectual elites, including corporate leadership, who are dealing with this problem, rarely have the same difficulties as the great majority of middle-income Americans.

Russians will consume marinated mushrooms and vodka, salted herring and vodka, smoked salmon and vodka, salami and vodka, caviar on brown bread and vodka, pickled cucumbers and vodka, cold tongue and vodka, red beet salad and vodka, scallions and vodka-anything and everything and vodka.

The retirement financial crisis will affect far more people than baby boomers, and certainly it will affect their children. Most of the retirees and near-retirees with whom we talked, said that they were extremely reluctant to have to depend on their children financially, or to think of moving in with their children. But the mere fact that they were discussing those issues indicates that some of them have already figured out that that is what lies ahead for them.

Television's compelling power is its immediacy . .. this immediacy feeds the politics of emotions, gut reactions and impressions rather than the politics of logic, facts and reason; it emphasizes personality rather than issues.

The main problems are insufficient diversification and the failure to pick age-appropriate strategies - that is, more aggressive when you're younger, and more conservative when you approach retirement. But even then you have to invest for growth.

I personally make sure that some of my investments are in foreign securities or in international commodity portfolios that are independent of the US dollar. But that's a personal preference. I do not invest in currencies because it's so complicated and so risky. I would not attempt that without excellent professional help.